


Treatment

by FortuneSurfer



Category: Per qualche dollaro in più | For a Few Dollars More (1965)
Genre: Gen, Horses, Implied/References Animal Cruelty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-05
Updated: 2020-08-05
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:14:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25727254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FortuneSurfer/pseuds/FortuneSurfer
Summary: Challenge accepted! Written for my friend's prompt in the title.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 6





	Treatment

A handsome and powerful mare is going in circles along the fence, passing him again and again, while Mr. Mortimer at the center of the pen is slapping the reins against his hand to guide her with the sounds. The walls reflect his rich even voice.

“Look, Douglas, my boy. Your gramps, rest his soul, did it differently. He did it just like everybody else, and he was wrong.” Telling him this, his father looks up to heavens and smirks, as if to say: common, correct me, dad, I know you’d love to do it. “He would tie the horse to a fence and whip it to teach it the fear of him. But then it won’t come to you.”

Douglas watches with slight disbelief how the raw horse learns to stop and to turn around to the signals of the slaps and his father’s tongue clicking. How the circles get smaller by and by and how broad but smooth movements of the horse become less and less commanded by fear and more and more filled with confidence and calmness.

“And it will never want to be your partner,” his father says and the thought of being rejected by an animal stings, although Douglas understands. “It will just wait until you finish whatever you'll be doing to it. And it'll always want to leave you.”

After a few minutes, the horse comes to his father and drops her head down by the soil. He pets her neck and puts a saddle on her, warning her: “This thing might tickle a little bit, girl,” and to Douglas’s astonishment, the mare doesn’t try to buck it off.

His father walks the horse by the bridle, and when it’s clear that she won’t try to jump or jerk, he strokes the mare between her big gentle eyes.

“You need to help it want to be your friend. Every single soul understands friendship...”

“Lost in thoughts, old man?” asks Manco curiously, taking Mortimer out of his memory; he is cleansing one of the Riddle’s hoof. “Care to share?”

“I’m thinking about how much you can tell about a man from looking at the way he treats his horse,” replies Mortimer honestly.

Manco chews on his cigar, which he holds unlit in his mouth to not irritate the animal.

“In that case, I guess I need to apologize to mine for the heavy and often ill-mannered burdens,” says he with a grin. And Mortimer smiles to himself when Manco addresses his gelding after that: “But it's a fair deal, pal: they buy your meals, too.”


End file.
